Descent to Ascend

"He that ascended up on high, as also he descended below all things...that he might be in all and through all things"  (D&C 88:6)
When Nephi asks to know about the tree his father saw in a vision, he is asked if he knows the condescension of God.  He responds that he doesn't, and then he is shown the Savior's birth, parts of His life, and His death at the hands of evil men.
When the Savior chose to come down to this earth as a humble child in a manger, he was taking a great step down.  The God of the old testament willingly subjected himself to mortality so that He might triumph over all its ailments for each one that would ever experience them.  He descended below so that He might rise above.
On this coming Monday morning Christi will be going in for another surgery.  She will be getting a G-tube. This will allow her to be fed directly to her stomach - bypassing the mouth and throat - through a tube into her tummy.
Strangely, we felt good about getting this procedure done -- even though we had fought against it long before (when Chrsti was on a non-surgical NG tube for the first year of her life).  It is a reversible thing, but then it had kind of seemed like capitulation, a kind of giving up on oral feeds.  Christ was eventually able to move successfully to oral feeds from the NG-tube then.  Yet in this situation, it feels like her descent into "G-tubeness" will actually allow her to ascend more quickly and effectively into oral feeds again.
Jesus descended there too for her, so that He would be able to succor her.  Like is often that case in this life with my own trials - there are earthly examples, or forerunners, that help mark the path and give comfort along the way also.
Ironically, Christi's little friend, Journee Harris, got a G-tube just a day or two ago.
I am so grateful the way is so clearly marked!  He really has "finished [His] preparations unto the children of men" (D&C 19:19)